I was always wondering why the completed jobs are shown in CUPS -- you can't restart them (you'll get an error message if you click the Restart Job button), and they take up drive space. For a private user, the job history is also useless -- your privacy is kept without it. Here's how to keep the list clean.
- Modify cupsd.conf. In an admin account, navigate to /private » etc » cups (use Go » Go to Folder from the Finder menu if you want), make a copy of cupsd.conf and rename it to cupsd.conf_default. Open cupsd.conf in TextWrangler or your editor of choice. Edit these lines as shown:
#PreserveJobHistory Yes » PreserveJobHistory No
#PreserveJobFiles No » PreserveJobFiles No
Save the file, quit the editor.
- Delete old printed job files. Log in to root account. WARNING! Think twice, don't rush. Navigate to /var/spool/cups
delete all the files except the /tmp folder.
- Check CUPS again. Restart with connected and powered printer. Open your browser and open the CUPS interface. Click Manage Jobs, then click Show Completed Jobs. Print anything and check again.
[
robg adds: To delete the job files, you can start a root shell (
sudo -s) as opposed to actually logging in as root. Please be careful with deletion in this mode; you really can do Bad Things in a hurry (have you backed up lately?).]